‘We do all right when we get to start’ but Piastri rues safety car that cost him shot at win in Japan

Oscar Piastri says he is encouraged by McLaren’s disappointment with second place in the Japanese Grand Prix, after feeling he had a chance of victory prior to a safety car period.

Oliver Bearman’s crash brought out a safety car shortly after Piastri had retained track position over George Russell, with the McLaren driver having taken the lead at the start of the race. Piastri had told his team he felt he had a chance of holding Russell off for the win prior to the pit stops, but Kimi Antonelli was able to pit under safety car and retain the lead, with Piastri then retaining second place to the end of the race.

“We do all right when we get to start!” Piastri joked having failed to take the start of the first two races.

“I would have loved to have seen how it would have panned out. I think I need to look back and see whether Kimi was quicker than George or similar pace. I think if he was the same pace as George then it would have been a pretty stressful afternoon because I probably would have had both of them right on my gearbox. But I think once Kimi had clean air, clearly, he was a lot faster than me. So, I’m not sure we would have won the race, but I certainly would have loved to have found out.

“It would have been really interesting to see what would have happened without that. I think I could keep George behind and just before the stops we’re actually pulling away a little bit again. So, a shame that we never got to see what would have happened.

"But I think for us at this point to be disappointed about finishing second is a pretty good place to be. So, massive thanks to the team. I think we did a really good job of executing with what we had. I think we clearly still need to find a bit of performance, but we took every opportunity we had today.”

With McLaren securing its first podium of the season off the back of a double-DNS in China, Piastri says the way he executed the weekend has shown the team’s potential to fight for wins in future.

“I think this weekend was probably one of my best weekends in F1,” he said. “I think I felt like I hit the ground running in practice, qualifying. I think we did a really good job of getting the car into the window I was happy with on Friday. I felt like I drove well in qualifying. In the race, there wasn’t anything more we could have done.

“We got a good start, the pace was good. I felt like I was strategic or smart with how I used the boost and how I managed that side of racing. Our strategy was good, we didn’t blink too early. Obviously, the safety car was a shame, but I think as race weekends go we couldn’t have done any better than that. So, for me I’m very happy with the performance that I put in, very happy with the performance from the whole team.

“Clearly, we’ve still got some, firstly, performance to find, but also on Lando [Norris]’s side of the garage was a pretty interrupted weekend with all the issues, and clearly the start of the season has not been easy for us with reliability, so we’ve got a long way to go. But I think we showed that if we get everything as good as we can get it, then we can cause a few headaches.”